BLOG · 7 Sept 2026 · 6 MIN
Why one large buy costs more than several small ones
Splitting an opening position across wallets is usually explained as a way to look like several buyers. The more durable reason is arithmetic: on a constant-product curve, a single large order pays a worse average price than the same total split into pieces.
Where the difference comes from
The curve prices each unit against the reserves at that instant. A large order moves the reserves as it fills, so its later units are priced against a curve its own earlier units already pushed. The quoted price and the settled price diverge, and the gap grows with order size.
Split the same amount and each piece is priced against a curve that has moved less. The pieces still push each other, but the compounding is gentler.
The same effect runs in reverse on the way out
Selling from several wallets cascades downward. The first wallet gets the best price, the last the worst, and the total is below the first quote multiplied out. On a small position that gap is fractions of a percent — in one measured run, 0.45% between the first and last of ten wallets. On a large one it dominates.
Any interface that quotes a multi-wallet sale at spot price is overstating it. The honest number comes from simulating the sales in order, which is what a quote should do before it shows you anything.
Where the argument stops
Fees do not care how you split. Each buy pays the same percentage, so a hundred tiny buys pay the same total fee as one large one — while burning a hundred times the gas.
There is also a floor. Below a certain size, the per-transaction gas overwhelms the pricing benefit, and the split costs more than it saves.
What to actually do
Split enough that curve slippage stops hurting, not so much that gas and time start to. On a bonding curve with a 4.2 ETH graduation threshold, a position of a few percent of the curve is comfortably served by ten to sixteen wallets.
Keep reading
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